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The folks over at U-he have released a public beta for Zebralette 3. It is stunningly deep and rich. If a free single oscillator synth with no filter can sound this good I can't wait to hear what Zebra 3 will be capable of.
Much discussion and details over at KVR.
Linux will soon have Zebra 3, arguably the greatest next-gen software synthesizer, as a native plugin, with the free Zebralette 3
for those lacking the budget, but having the time, desire, and skill, to create great music. With Yoshimi, Surge XT, Vital,
and DecentSampler, a great and varied collection is readily available 
Never installed a U-he product? Typical terminal output below, Installations are simple, extract the archive, cd to it's folder:
for example, /home/you/.u-he/Zebralette3-15573
$ bash /home/you/.u-he/Zebralette3-15573/install.sh
(snipped lots of legal mumboJumbo, licensing text etc)
Do you agree the license's terms? [y/n] y
Zebralette3's data were installed to /home/you/.u-he/Zebralette3
The CLAP has been installed in: /home/you/.clap/u-he
The VST3 has been installed in: /home/you/.vst3/u-he/Zebralette3.vst3
Have fun with Zebralette3 and thank you for installing u-he software!
yes, the best installers in the universe!!!
Here are the CLAP and VST versions, preset browser, and gui (thanks Robin, for the heads up!)
Robin Cherry wrote: ↑Sat Feb 17, 2024 12:04 amIt is stunningly deep and rich. If a free single oscillator synth with no filter can sound this good I can't wait to hear what Zebra 3 will be capable of.
So I have an incredibly ignorant question, but my dad once told me those are the ones worth asking the most.
This is a synth, right? It creates… waves, right? How can synths sound materially different from one another if they are all based on (more or less) the same algorithms?
runiq wrote: ↑Sun Feb 18, 2024 10:24 amRobin Cherry wrote: ↑Sat Feb 17, 2024 12:04 amIt is stunningly deep and rich. If a free single oscillator synth with no filter can sound this good I can't wait to hear what Zebra 3 will be capable of.
So I have an incredibly ignorant question, but my dad once told me those are the ones worth asking the most.
This is a synth, right? It creates… waves, right? How can synths sound materially different from one another if they are all based on (more or less) the same algorithms?
They may produce (vaguely) similar 'waves' but they definitely don't use the same algorithms, and some, like my synth of choice, actually use several quite different algorithms - either separately or combined. That's before you consider built-in randomisation and effects.
runiq wrote: ↑Sun Feb 18, 2024 10:24 amRobin Cherry wrote: ↑Sat Feb 17, 2024 12:04 amIt is stunningly deep and rich. If a free single oscillator synth with no filter can sound this good I can't wait to hear what Zebra 3 will be capable of.
So I have an incredibly ignorant question, but my dad once told me those are the ones worth asking the most.
This is a synth, right? It creates… waves, right? How can synths sound materially different from one another if they are all based on (more or less) the same algorithms?
Different waves sound different because of the different harmonic content found in them. Some have much more of the fundamental, the root note that your ear picks up on, and some have many more partials. A saw wave has more harmonics than a sine wave which makes it a lot manipulatatble in standard synthesizer architectur for example.
A synthesizer like zebralette uses a wave editor to create custom and harmonically rich waveforms to find as yet unheard sounds. Zebralettes implementation of this is quite versatile, unique, and cutting edge. It also uses oscillator effects to manipulate the harmonic content of these custom waveforms to design complex and interesting sounds.
Instead of an envelope it uses a multiatage envelope generator which is also drawable to change the waveform over time. This is all coupled with a deep and complex mod matrix that allows any parameter to effect any other parameter with ease and speed.
Most of these ideas are not original to uhe but the way that they have implemented them and the ease of creating them is.
runiq wrote: ↑Sun Feb 18, 2024 10:24 amRobin Cherry wrote: ↑Sat Feb 17, 2024 12:04 amIt is stunningly deep and rich. If a free single oscillator synth with no filter can sound this good I can't wait to hear what Zebra 3 will be capable of.
So I have an incredibly ignorant question, but my dad once told me those are the ones worth asking the most.
This is a synth, right? It creates… waves, right? How can synths sound materially different from one another if they are all based on (more or less) the same algorithms?
If you mean synths in general. In my opinion they are not all based on the same algorithms.
If you mean: how can a single oscillator synth (like the Zebralette) sound different from another? In this case we're talking about a wave-table synth. I don't know if you are very familiar w/ what an oscillator does on a synth and what a filter does but, AFAIK, they could make a wave table from an oscillator that has been put through a filter. So w/ one single analog oscillator you can't really sound very different from synth to synth (they basically all have a triangle waveform, sawtooth, pulse and square). But wave-table: that's different.
And even old-fashioned analog sysnths have a hard time sounding completely different. Just watch this video from Anthony Marinelly who programmed and played the synth bass on Michael Jackson's "Thriller". Everybody (including me!) swore it was a Minimoog but it was an ARP 2600 (admittedly: with a Moog-like filter swapped for the ARP's according to Marinelly at the start of the vid)!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkJVim4X9C4
The gui in the linux version has a smaller font in the preset browser, and a few other spots, and with a color with low contrast, reducing readabilty, compared to the windows version. I mentioned this in their forum, as they are desirous of bug reports and suggestions, and warn to use a limiter at all times 
"Every quirk, every bug, every crash, every WTF just happened, let us know about it.
Share your greatest and most surprising findings and insights with everyone else.
Same here, and CPU use can be high, as was the case with their Diva synth, during it's beta, and early releases, greatly optimized over the years,
so I expect a similar path for Zebra3 and Zebralette 3.
U-he have a general 'stuck-note' topic for the existing U-he synths, with some general tips for synths in general, although generally speaking, the new tech in this synth may increase the possibilities:
I'm in the process of designing a weird ass sound bank for this one, any idea where to send the result so u-he ship the bank with Zebralette? Kvr? Or better some support address email?
(Something free for something free is fair exchange imho)
This is a U-he community repository for soundsets:
https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=180090
This is the Zebralette 'tips and tricks' topic, someone else posted some sounds, so another good location:
https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopi ... ac631c2a0b
Thanks for creating and sharing!
Probably contact Support for inclusion in products: https://u-he.com/support/#contact